genres: hard rock + post-grunge + alternative metal
I definitely wouldn’t have picked Seventh Day Slumber as one of my most anticipated releases of 2022, and yet now I would be shocked if this early release doesn’t end up among my favorite albums from the year. Let’s back up and talk about the band for a minute, and then dive into what sets this album apart. I’ve sporadically listened to Seventh Day Slumber for many years, typically giving each release a quick listen and mostly forgetting about it by the following day. For most of their 20+ year run thus far, the band has dabbled in various corners of hard rock and post-grunge. Despite the track record of Christian bands playing music in this style and then running out of new ideas far before calling it quits being…extensive, that’s not really what happened with this band. While their three album BEC records run (the grungy Once Upon A Shattered Life, one of the better mid-2000s alt-rock records Finally Awake, a left turn into worship-rock with Take Everything) eerily mirrors the simultaneous decline of Kutless (although if their new project ever releases, based on what I’ve heard so far I’ll take back every negative comment), Seventh Day Slumber never seemed to be chasing new genres for commercial purposes or because they’d run out of ideas. Each shift carried legitimate passion, perhaps best represented by their lesser known forays into Spanish language releases, even if many of the releases weren’t for me (especially the post-BEC We Are The Broken through Closer To Chaos, which while good for what they are, steered a little too close to modern “dad rock” for me).
So how does a band coming up on thirty years go from those softer releases (plus the CCM influenced rock of Unseen: The Lion And The Lamb which at the time concerned me that they might finally be “selling out”) to releasing by far their heaviest and most fun material to date? I’m still not entirely sure, but it’s an incredible treat. My interest was first piqued about a month ago by the release of the title track featuring The Word Alive. Now, this was an intriguing feature for two reasons. First, TWA (contrary to what might be expected by the name) is in no sense a Christian band. Not to say they are antagonistic or that SDS refuses to do anything outside the Christian market (quite the opposite in many cases), but nearly everything SDS writes is still openly religious. Second, The Word Alive is a VERY different band stylistically. While they too have been trending in a softer direction, it’s more of an emo/scene/pop sense than what Seventh Day Slumber is doing, and TWA is still probably best known for their early releases Deceiver, Life Cycles, and REAL., which are still three of the best technical metalcore albums ever written. Based on where both bands were in their careers, I didn’t expect too much, but I was still confused as to how the two styles would blend and excited to find out.
The answer is: heavy. “Death By Admiration” is Seventh Day Slumber’s heaviest track to date by a mile, and heavier than anything The Word Alive has done since 2016’s Dark Matter. We even get a delightful return of Telle’s (TWA) screams at the track’s end. More than just being a fun, heavy track for those of us who like that, it’s also really really good. The riffs are both catchy and unique (especially great integration of dissonance into the main riff), the vocal melodies have quite tons of energy and dynamicism, and extremely tight songwriting. Now, even with this single, I tried not to get my hopes too high. I’ve been burned too many times by bands releasing their heavy track(s) as the singles and everything else being several steps lower in energy and quality (Underoath’s Erase Me; BMTH’s amo [in terms of heaviness only, they can still write a great pop song]; The Amity Affliction’s ELY…OYLT; Enter Shikari’s last TWO albums). So after listening to the whole album…I’m thrilled to report that “Death By Admiration” is neither the best or heaviest track. The energy is maintained throughout, almost every song features at least one wonderful riff, yet there’s still lots of variety packed into a cohesive package. “Fatal Love” pairs downtuned chugs and dissonance with a touch of backing electronics almost mirroring late career A Skylit Drive. “Solemn Oath” is a straight up early 2000s melodic metalcore track (minus the screaming). “Halos” almost drifts into post-metal territory with sludgy, trance-like building punctuated by harsh vocals (as a side note, whoever from SDS is doing the screams is better than many prominent metalcore vocalists, and while it would be a stylistic stretch I’d love to see them take center stage in at least one future track either here or in a side project) and a surprisingly crushing breakdown. “Snake Mouth” brings in another feature, this time from Relent for a nu metal/rapcore influenced track.
There’s very little to criticize here, because even the things I have historically disliked in other places are used to great effect here. Having the final track be the one acoustic, soft track is a bit of a tired trope, but it’s a fine song that adds variety and I can’t think of where else in the track list I’d locate it. The album is a touch on the shorter end with only 10 tracks, but there’s zero filler, it makes for an easy 35 minute listen, and the band has kept up a quick pace of releases. Even the production works, despite having a noticeable compressed, overproduced effect (especially on the vocals). Kellen McGregor’s (the fantastic guitarist for Memphis May Fire, who has produced their recent records along with a few other bands) production often has this ‘quality’ to it, and most of the time it drives me crazy, and has even made a couple albums borderline unlistenable for me. While in a metalcore releases it results in dialing up all the biggest stereotypes of the genre, it actually creates a really cool and unique atmosphere when used in a radically different genre.
Listen Here
www-reviews 